Page:Cornelia Meigs--The island of Appledore.djvu/232

210 train and she’s an hour late,” was the easy reply. “Don’t fuss, young man, she’ll be along by and by.”

“I’ll walk,” returned Billy, and flung himself down the steps.

There was no town at the Junction, no place where a conveyance was to be had, so walk  Billy did. The road was rough and rutty, it seemed eternally climbing up hills and  never going down them; the distance seemed  thirty miles instead of three. The rain clouds cleared and the sun came out, hot and steaming, to beat mercilessly upon his uncovered  head. His shoes were heavy and stiff from their salt-water soaking, there was salt, too, in  his hair, his eyes and in his parched throat. He stumbled on, knowing vaguely from the shortening shadows that it was nearly noon,  that the time was flying and that even now it  might be too late.

He began to pass small houses, he crossed the bridge that spanned Piscataqua’s tide-river, he came into the town itself. He threaded his way up and down several narrow,  crooked streets until he came out at last upon  a broader one, with a feeling that he had seen  it before. Yes, there ahead of him was the